Examines the fundamental developments in the technical, social and cultural history of surgery and reflects the state of historical research on the topic.

Table of Contents

• Acknowledgements
• List of Figures
• Editor and Contributors
• Introduction: What Is Special About the History of Surgery? - Thomas Schlich
• Part I Periods and Topics
• Surgery and Its Histories: Purposes and Contexts - Christopher Lawrence
• Pre-modern Surgery: Wounds, Words, and the Paradox of ‘Tradition’ - Faith Wallis
• Medicalizing the Surgical Trade, 1650–1820: Workers, Knowledge, Markets and Politics - Christelle Rabier
• Surgery Becomes a Specialty: Professional Boundaries and Surgery - Peter J. Kernahan
• Between Human and Veterinary Medicine: The History of Animals and Surgery - Abigail Woods
• Women in Surgery: Patients and Practitioners - Claire Brock
• Nursing and Surgery: Professionalisation, Education and Innovation - Rosemary Wall and Christine E. Hallett
• Opening the Abdomen: The Expansion of Surgery - Sally Frampton
• Surgery and Anaesthesia: Revolutions in Practice - Stephanie J. Snow
• The History of Surgical Wound Infection: Revolution or Evolution? - Michael Worboys
• Surgical Instruments: History and Historiography - Claire L. Jones
• Part II Links
• Surgery and Architecture: Spaces for Operating - Annmarie Adams
• Visualizing Surgery: Surgeons’ Use of Images, 1600–Present - Harriet Palfreyman and Christelle Rabier
• Art and Surgery: The Expert Hands of Artists and Surgeons - Mary Hunter
• Surgery and Emotion: The Era Before Anaesthesia - Michael Brown
• Surgery and Popular Culture: Situating the Surgeon and the Surgical Experience in Popular Media - Susan E. Lederer
• Surgery, Imperial Rule and Colonial Societies (1800–1930): Technical, Institutional and Social Histories - Kieran Fitzpatrick
• Surgery and War: The Discussions About the Usefulness of War for Medical Progress - Leo van Bergen
• Part III Areas and Technologies
• Transplantation Surgery: Organ Replacement Between Reductionism and Systemic Approaches - Sibylle Obrecht
• Opening the Skull: Neurosurgery as a Case Study of Surgical Specialisation - Delia Gavrus
• Cancer: Radical Surgery and the Patient - David Cantor
• Surgery and Clinical Trials: The History and Controversies of Surgical Evidence - David S. Jones
• Bariatric and Cosmetic Surgery: Shifting Rationales in Contemporary Surgical Practices - Jean-Philippe Gendron
• A Revolution Through the Keyhole: Technology, Innovation, and the Rise of Minimally Invasive Surgery - Nicholas Whitfield